Sleep to Dream
by Ann Valentine
Summary: Specs and Dutchy find a *ahem* "girl" in an alley, but is she all that she seems? (Definitely NOT your typical Mary Sue.) Part the Third up 4/5/02!
1. Part the First

Title: Sleep to Dream (1/?)  
Author: Slash! (percynokoi@netscape.net)(give me FB please! I will love you!)   
Sites: http://kiss.to/okp and http://lumosetnox.envy.nu  
Rating: PG  
Why: Some language. Also cross-dressing (but definitely not your normal kind!)  
Warnings: Cross-dressing. It also will eventually contain SLASH (in both meanings of the word (heh)), so if you don't go in for that sort of thing . . .  
Disclaimer: I don't own them, but I wish to God that I did.  
Archive: My site; STN if 'Cracks will have me.  
Summary: I know that all fics say this, but this is definitely NOT your typical Mary Sue. In this part, Specs and Dutchy stumble upon a girl in an alley.   
Notes: Enter Slash, my OC! Those who answered to the CC, you WILL be in here, just not quite yet. I swear. Slasher's honor. The little song that Specs sings when he's kicking the door of the lodging house is roughly to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad." Also, just imagine that they're talking with NY accents. I didn't feel like typing them out, but I did keep the bad grammar.   
  
*-*-*  
  
Sleep to Dream  
Part the First  
  
"Yeah, so then this guy, he grabs me by the back of the shirt and goes, 'I don't see anything about a fire on here!' I think, 'Oh m'Gawd, I'm caught!' So I go--and lemme tell ya, Cowboy would've been proud--'On page nine, sir, gotta go!' Then I jerk away from him and run like hell. Best part was, the guy gave me ten cents and didn't get his change." Dutchy grinned and jingled the change in his pockets.   
  
"Dutchy!" Specs said, the scolding tone in his voice offset by the grin on his face. "That's awful!"   
  
"You can't be lily-white and live," Dutchy replied cheerfully. " 'Sides, he was rich, he ain't gonna miss a dime."   
  
"Dutchy, Dutchy, Dutchy. What am I going to do with you?"  
  
Dutchy remained silent. Specs glanced over at the blonde, seeing that he was frowning and glancing around for something.  
  
"Hey, Specs . . . you hear that?"   
  
"Hear what?"  
  
"Listen."   
  
The two boys stopped and Specs strained his ears. Suddenly, the noise became quite audible to him. Someone nearby was breathing heavily, and every once in a while there was a soft sob.   
  
"What is that?"   
  
"Let's check it out."  
  
Moving on cats' feet, Specs and Dutchy padded to the location of the sound and peered into the alleyway. Specs gasped and Dutchy jerked away from the sight.   
  
A girl knelt in the alleyway, her hands covered in blood. There were dark red streaks along her forehead where she had apparently wiped her forehead and smeared blood across the skin. Blood stained her dress and pooled in the uneven covering of the ground. However, it was not all the blood that disturbed the newsboys.  
  
It was the dead body she was straddling and the knife in its chest.   
  
At their arrival, the girl looked up at them with dull green eyes. Absently, she raised a hand and pushed a lock of auburn hair out of her face, further staining her forehead. She blinked, swayed, and fainted.  
  
"H-holy crap!" Dutchy finally managed to say. "We-we gotta call the bulls!" He grabbed Specs' hand and began dragging him away.  
  
"But what about the--?"  
  
"If the cops see us with the girl, it won't matter if we didn't do nothin'! They're gonna think we helped her!"   
  
"Hold it!" Specs yanked against Dutchy's hand and pulled away. "I'm going to go back and help her. Give me enough time to get her away from there, then call the bulls."  
  
Dutchy stared at Specs, then shook his head. "That's a really stupid plan."   
  
"I know, but we can't just leave her there!"   
  
"Someday that big heart of yours is gonna get you killed. Well, what are you waiting for? Go! I'm giving you a ten minute head start, then I'm calling the bulls."   
  
"Right." Specs began jogging back to the alleyway, then stopped and waved. "Thanks!" With that, he ducked into the alley.   
  
"Yeah, save your thanks," Dutchy muttered, waving vaguely in the direction his friend had gone. "Clock's ticking." Specs reappeared, carrying the girl, and began sprinting back towards the lodging house.   
  
  
At the lodging house, Specs arrived only to realize that he had absolutely no way of letting the others know that he was there. Carefully shifting his burden, he began kicking the door rhythmically.   
  
"Open up the stupid door/'Cause it's cold out here/Open up the stupid door/Or I'll kick your rear/I'll stay out here keepin' kicking/Until early in the morn/Can't you hear my endless kickin'/OPEN THE GODDAMN DOOR!" As he sang the last few words, the door opened and Snipeshooter stared at him.  
  
"Whatcha got there?" he asked curiously.   
  
"A girl Dutchy and I found in the alley. Now move it." Gesturing with his head for the younger boy to move aside, Specs entered the lodging house and headed for the sick room. "Get Kloppman!" he yelled as an afterthought.   
  
After setting the girl down, Specs stepped aside to let Kloppman look her over.  
  
"Dutchy and I found her like this in the alley," he explained. "I didn't get a chance to look her over for wounds."  
  
The lodging house owner chased him out, telling him that a man couldn't work with someone hovering over his shoulder. Once he was alone, Kloppman began to work.   
  
He checked her for obvious wounds first, feeling extremely baffled when he found nothing.   
  
/Why is she covered in blood if she ain't hurt?/  
  
Kloppman hitched her skirt up as much as he dared, seeing no wounds on her legs either. /Okay, this is getting extremely weird./  
  
Swallowing, he reached out to unbutton her shirt, frowning at the feel of her chest. It didn't feel . . . right. Opening the girl's shirt, he gasped and then had to choke back laughter.   
  
The girl Specs had found wasn't a girl.  
  
She was a man.  
  
With cantaloupes in her corset.  
  
*end part I* 


	2. Part the Second

Hey everyone! Slash is BACK in the second part of Sleep to Dream! Before the fic, though, the shout-outs!  
  
Neffie: Thanks! I tried to make it different.  
  
Stage: Dutchy went to talk to the bulls. And great minds think alike too, you know. (PLUG: Everyone needs to go read "Still Waters Run Deep" RIGHT NOW. It's a very good story.)   
  
Hard Luck Woman: Thanks for the nice words! ^____________^ I really appreciate it.  
  
VinylnoMiko: Okay, you can have your Jack/Spot . . . later. After Jack and David have a messy breakup and massive amounts of angst. (PLUG: Everyone should also go read "Two-Bit Juice Joint" right now. I'm in it! (or at least will be!))  
  
Singah: Yep, cantaloupes. What can I say? I'm an optimist. ^__^  
  
And thanks to EVERYONE who commented on the song! It was hard to write. (I don't do music.)  
  
Now for the disclaimer . . . I don't own them, Disney does. I own Slash. Stage owns the name Alexander Durecht.   
  
On with the show!  
*-*-*  
  
Sleep to Dream  
Part the Second  
  
"EXTRY! EXTRY! READ ALL ABOUT IT! BODY FOUND IN ALLEY DRAINED OF BLOOD! NO SUSPECTS YET!" Dutchy raised the paper over his head, his voice echoing over the crowded streets. He was pleased with the day's headline--the papers were going like hotcakes. He and Specs had only been selling for about an hour and were already down to their last few papers. He trotted back to Specs to get a few more papers and found the brunette frowning vaguely at a lamppost, eyes unfocused.   
  
"Hey, Specs, you okay?" Dutchy asked, concerned.   
  
Specs shook himself, then turned to look at Dutchy. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why do you ask?"  
  
"You looked a little . . . oh, what's the word . . . wrapped up in your thoughts?"   
  
"Preoccupied?"  
  
"Yeah, that. So what's up?"   
  
"Nothin'. I was just thinking about--"  
  
"The girl," both newsies said.   
  
Dutchy snorted. "You been thinkin' about her all day. Don't you think maybe it's time to concentrate on something more important?"   
  
"Like what?"   
  
"Oh, I don't know, like selling papes!" Dutchy smacked Specs upside the head with a spare paper. "C'mon, Specs, snap out of it. We got papes to sell. You can worry about the girl later."   
  
"You're right." Specs smiled. "Let's do it."   
  
  
Back at the lodging house, Kloppman was carefully removing the cantaloupes when the boy groaned softly. Kloppman sat back and prepared to watch the fireworks as his eyes slowly opened.  
  
A hand rose and gently brushed over the still-unfocused emerald eyes. The hand traveled down, freezing at the unbuttoned button. Slowly, it traveled to the second. At the discovery that it, too, was undone, the boy sat straight up. He gasped and jerked backwards at the sight of Kloppman, who was holding up a cantaloupe and smirking.  
  
"Optimistic, aren't we?"   
  
The boy went red.  
  
"So . . . who are you, why are you dressed like a woman, and why were you covered in blood?"   
  
"Don't tell anyone."  
  
Kloppman raised an eyebrow. "Hope you didn't talk while you was dressed like that."  
  
"I . . . no. Don't tell anyone."  
  
"Don't worry, your secret's safe with me. Now answer my questions."   
  
"Connolly. It's safe. Brother was killed."   
  
Kloppman's other eyebrow joined its twin. " 'It's safe?' How is it safe?"  
  
"Just is."  
  
"Oh." Deciding he wasn't going to get any more straight answers from this kid, Kloppman decided to quit while he was ahead. "Well, you go on upstairs and clean up. If you want to stay dressed like that, I can loan you some of my daughter's clothes. If you don't, a couple of the boys are your size." Kloppman nodded to the boy and left.  
  
"Um, yeah . . . thanks."   
  
  
That evening, Kloppman's bookwork was interrupted by a crowd of noisy, talking, laughing newsboys. Two veered away from the mass and went to his desk.   
  
"Hey, Kloppman," Specs said, leaning on the desk. "So, how's the girl doing?"   
  
"The . . . girl?" Kloppman coughed. "Oh, she's . . ."--another cough--"fine. She's"--a third cough--"awake now. Why don't you go in and see"--a fourth cough--"her?"  
  
"You feeling okay?" Dutchy asked. "You're coughing a lot."  
  
"I'm fine. Go on in."   
  
The two boys went into the quarantine room and found the girl sitting up. She looked much better than she had the night before--the blood was gone, she had changed into clean clothes, and she looked well-rested.   
  
As his eyes settled on her, something began niggling at the back of Dutchy's brain.  
  
"Hi. Are you feeling better?" Specs asked.  
  
The girl nodded, ducking her head. She grabbed a notepad, scribbled something on it, and handed it to Specs.   
  
" 'Much better, thank you,' " he read aloud, then handed it back. "Are you mute?"  
  
She nodded again.   
  
Dutchy clicked his tongue. "Pity. I guess that means you can't stay here. Your folks live around here?"  
  
The girl shook her head, wrote something else, and handed the pad to Dutchy.   
  
" 'They're dead,' " he read. "Aw, geez, I'm sorry."  
  
The girl shrugged, then looked up and smiled sadly at them. The two newsies spent a few more minutes talking to the girl, then Specs turned to Dutchy and said,  
  
"I'm gonna turn in now." He nodded to the girl and added, "I'm glad you're better."   
  
She smiled and waved good-bye to him as he left. Once they were alone, Dutchy sat down by the girl's bed and said, "Now you have some explaining to do."  
  
She stared at him blankly.  
  
"We found you in an alley covered in blood over a dead body. If you're innocent, then prove it. If you're not, the bulls are only a few blocks away. Well?"  
  
The girl licked her lips nervously and began writing on her notepad. Finally, she handed it to Dutchy and stared at him.  
  
" 'I didn't do it,' " he read aloud. " 'I was trying to help the poor man. Please believe me.' " He handed the pad back and arched an eyebrow. "You didn't do it. Right. You know, I consider myself an expert on females, and I don't know any who would just go up to a dead body to help it. Especially one as disgusting and bloody as that one was. Too squeamish." He began standing as he continued, "So I think that I'll just have to get up and--"  
  
"Stop!" The single word leapt from the girl's throat and froze Dutchy in place. The girl clapped a hand over her mouth, green eyes widening as she realized her mistake.   
  
Dutchy, although he had claimed to be, was no expert on women. However, he knew one thing for sure--women did not, in general, have bass voices. Suddenly, all the pieces fell into place. The hair--the eyes--the voice--it had to be--  
  
"Aidan Connolly?"   
  
The girl's--Aidan's--eyes widened yet further as her--his--hand fell into his lap. "Alexander Durecht?"   
  
*end part two* 


	3. Part the Third

Hey everyone! It's been a while, hasn't it? ^___^ My muses just weren't cooperating with me on this one. _ Sorry it's so short. Now, onto the shout-outs!

Stage: Isn't 'niggling' so fun? It's almost as good as 'lugubrious' or 'masticate.' ^___^ 

Vinyl: No problema! Who's Bobby Sue? Is he Mary Sue's cross-dressing brother? O_o 

Ferret: Your wish is my command. Glad you like it!

Raven: Whoo, two reviews! ^___^ Glad you're enjoying this so much-here's even more to confuse you!

Neffie: Ow! *rubs head* That was uncalled for. And please bring Skittery back when you're done with him! With ALL of his clothes preferably ON him!

Ladybug: I dunno; you'd have to ask her. So, Stage, is it Durer? OH! Something really funny happened the other day! I was flipping through "The Complete Companion to The Vampire Chronicles" and who do I see but Albrecht Durer. That made me think of Durecht . . . which made me think of Dutchy . . .which made me think of Mr. Sockem. So, yeah. Anyway.

Snape no Koibito: Thank youuuu.

Disclaimer: Don't own them. Disney does. I own Slash. I don't know who owns B.S. Stage came up with the name Alexander Durecht. (who may or may not be based on Albrecht Durer) 

Lights . . . camera . . . and ACTION!

*-*-*

Sleep to Dream

Part the Third

"I got five twos," Racetrack announced, setting five cards face-down in the middle of the table.

"B.S.," Jack replied, scoffing. "There ain't no way you can have five twos."

Race smirked and flipped over the cards, revealing five twos. "Anything's possible when you're playin' with two decks."

Jack opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again, then decided to take his losses with grace. Ignoring the snickers from around the table, he gathered the cards and added them to his hand. "Mush, your go."

"Oh! Um . . . " The curly-haired newsie looked at his cards, then pulled one out. "One three." He set the card down and smiled at everyone.

"B.S.!" the five boys chorused. Mush frowned as he took his card back.

"How do you always know?" he asked no one in particular.

Chuckling, Blink ruffled the other boy's curly hair. "You just try too hard."

Suddenly, the quarantine door flew open. Dutchy ran out and dashed upstairs. A few minutes later, he reappeared with an armful of clothes and ducked back in.

"Well, that was random," Swifty remarked.

"Think maybe we should see what's going on?" Jake asked. 

"Yeah, maybe," Jack agreed. 

"Alexander, I can't!" Aidan hissed, shoving away the clothes that Dutchy had proffered. "I'd be too obvious!"

"Too obvious?" Dutchy scoffed. "Please! You'd be in with a crowd of newsboys that all look alike. If anything, you'd probably blend in too well." 

"The guy who's following me is dangerous, though," Aidan retorted. "If he ever saw me--"

"How dangerous can he be? You ain't dead yet." 

"I'll show you." With hurried movements, Aidan unbuttoned his shirt halfway. Dutchy blushed instinctively, then gasped at the long white scar that ran horizontally across the upper half of his chest.

"Oh, my God . . ."

"He did that to me." 

"If he did that to ya, then why didn't he kill ya when he had the chance?"

"Don't know." 

Shyly, Dutchy asked, "Do you mind if I . . .?" and gestured towards the scar. Aidan shrugged, and Dutchy reached out and touched it with a feather-light touch. 

It was then that Jack opened the door.

If it wasn't what it looked like, then Jack was hard-pressed to say what it was. To him, it looked an awful lot like a girl with a halfway-unbuttoned shirt and Dutchy with his hand on her chest.

"What the hell are you doing?" he yelped. Dutchy yelped and jerked back, spinning. The girl gasped and pulled her shirt closed. 

"Jack!" Dutchy exclaimed. "It ain't what it looks like!" 

"Well, if it ain't what it looks like, than what is it?" 

"Alexander was looking at my scar," Aidan said quietly. "He was not attempting to rape me." 

"Oh. Um." Jack started. "That's an awful deep voice you got there, miss." 

"That's because I'm not a miss." 

It took a good fifteen minutes for Aidan to explain his story to Jack, because the Manhattan leader kept interrupting to get details clarified. 

"So, let me get this straight," Jack said when Aidan was finished. "You're being chased by a guy who's killed your family, and, although he gave you that scar, did not kill you. As a result, you posed as a mute girl to throw him off your trail. You found your brother's body earlier this evening, and that's where Specs and Dutch found you. Am I right?"

Aidan nodded. 

"Okay, then, I got just one question for you. Why are you telling me all this? I could be in cahoots with this guy." 

"Alexander trusts you," Aidan replied simply. 

Jack glanced over at Dutchy. "'Alexander?'" he repeated. 

Dutchy blushed. 

Jack turned back to Aidan. "It ain't the most creative story I've heard, but it'll do. You can stay in here for tonight, but you're gettin' up tomorrow mornin' with the rest of us and sellin', then we'll make room for you upstairs." He smiled, then reached out and ran a finger across Aidan's scar. "Welcome to the Manhattan newsies . . . Slash." 

*end part three*


End file.
